Author(s): Rebecca Solnit

Politics | USA | Biography and Memoir | Snips

A landmark memoir from the author of Men Explain Things to Me: an electric portrait of the artist as a young woman that asks how a young writer finds her voice in a society that prefers women to be silent. In 1981, Rebecca Solnit rented a studio apartment in San Francisco, her home for the next twenty-five years. There she began the process of forging a voice in a society that preferred women to be silent. Liberated by West Coast activism, growing gay pride and punk rock, she broke through oppression and over time transformed into a writer and activist who speaks for the marginalised - galvanised to use her own voice for change. Recollections of My Non-Existence is the landmark memoir from a voice of a generation, and a rally cry for generations to come.  

Review: 'Solnit taught me that activism is poetic. Her prose as clear and galvanising as it is beautiful. In Recollections of my Non-Existence she takes us through the dreams and dark corners of her life. Each passage a revelation, both idiosyncratic and universal, as she examines the everyday violence of inhabiting a female body, and the everyday erasure that occurs in our society. Unflinching she lights the way, holding up her experience, her insight, that others might find her, and find hope' - Florence Welch

Author Biography: Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than twenty books, including A Field Guide to Getting Lost, The Faraway Nearby, A Paradise Built in Hell, River of Shadows, and Wanderlust. She is also the author of Men Explain Things to Me and many essays on feminism, activism, social change, hope, and the climate crisis. A contributing editor to Harper's, she writes regularly for the Guardian, the London Review of Books, and the Los Angeles Times. She lives in San Francisco.